MSNBC - So What's the Point?

So there's this television network and this software company. And the one
says to the other, "Wouldn't it be cool to get together and stick some news
on the WorldWide Web and link to a cable channel?". Sounds like the start
of some unbelievable shaggy dog story (do you have shaggy dog stories in
the US?) doesn't it but, as we all know, this is exactly what NBC and Microsoft
have done, creating the originally named MSNBC. So what does each of these
two massive firms get from the deal and, perhaps more importantly, what do
we, the general public, get from it?

Since I am a member of the general public it might be best to start by addressing
this question before I begin to use my newly acquired business skills to
analyze what the business benefits might be.

What Joe Public gets is 'not a lot that he couldn't get elsewhere'. What
we see on the web is a newspaper style format not dissimilar to the other
newspapers that are out there (NYT, SF Chronicle etc.); that is to say not
very inspiring. There is the usual mix of news, comment, sport and features,
with the occasional exclusive (yeah, right, you and all the others) all purveyed
in a fairly slick manner. The most interesting aspects for me were the links
to some pretty interesting websites (Russia Web, CIA File on Hong Kong) and
the database showing campaign contributions given to candidates in the upcoming
elections (nice interactive touch this, map of US, list of candidates, list
of contributors). There were some links to audio clips, which without exception
failed to work, and to video clips which my terminal was unable to access
because it didn't have the software. In fact there were a worrying number
of errors which surprised me given the fairly high profile of the site.

But the most striking thing for me was the lack of any significant connection
with the TV side. Perhaps this is a little unfair given the fact that I could
not access the audio/video clips which I presume come from the cable footage
used on TV. There is a link called "On Air Highlights but this is no more
than a glorified TV Guide.

Overall judgement: Could do better.

But what of the business benefits. One imagines that for NBC the link with
Microsoft might give it access to the latest technology in terms of web servers
and browsers. However, Microsoft is far from being a leader in the field
at present and NBC could perhaps have obtained this knowledge elsewhere.
For Microsoft the advantages are probably in gaining experience with providing
content on the web, a stated goal of Bill Gates in his vision of the firm's
future. Whilst this may indeed be a benefit, it is unclear to me whether
the benefits are so great when the content provided is so uninspiring and
so close in nature to other sites. The business argument seems to be primarily
one of synergies the provision of complementary assets. It is unclear to
me whether there are real synergies to be had. Within the media industry
in general this has been a key theme and there has a been a tremendous amount
of consolidation not much of it to the benefit of either consumers or businesses.
The driver is stated to be the nebulous idea of media convergence although
no one seems to be able to clearly dfine what this is. Perhaps the next few
years will confirm the benefits of firms in different areas of media coming
together as the notion of convergence becomes more clear.

My impression is that Microsoft and NBC, like many other firms at present,
are throwing out content onto the web without considering what the benefits
economically really are. There seems to be a notion that if you're not on
the web you're falling behind and it's better to be there with something
poor than not at all. This may indeed be a genuine benefit for firms in the
long term but when the product is characterised by a stream of errors and
the content appears ill thought out it is hard to see how this is advantageous
to business success. Firms might do well to consider in more depth what it
is they are putting out on their web sites rather than throwing out any old
thing just to prove they are there. The opening line of the Yahoo!/Reuters
news item "On the Internet the Future is Nigh" is a telling one. Internet
content really is more sizzle than substance in general and unfortunately
MSNBC contributes more sound and fury than anything else. It ultimately
signifies, if not nothing, then certainly not a lot.